Tag #146678 - Interview #78109 (Naum Kravets)

Uman was a true Jewish town. The wisest and most educated Jews, tzaddiks, lived in Uman. There were a lot of synagogues and prayer houses in the town. Before the revolution there were several cheders and one yeshivah. Of course, the Soviet regime closed down all those institutions when the struggle against religion [14] commenced, but two large synagogues remained before World War II [see Great Patriotic War] [15]. A lot of old buildings are still there, in the center of Uman. These are mostly two-storied log houses. The logs of the ground floor had a deep clay coating and the top was made of close fitted logs. Uman is surrounded by thick forests, so wood was one of the most affordable construction materials. Rich Jews and the local intelligentsia [mostly Jewish] lived in the center of Uman. There was a large pond far from the center. That was the area, where poor Jews lived. There were one-storied simpler buildings. But there were kitchen gardens, orchards and flower beds by those houses.